An indie platform in the making.
http://store.indiecity.com/

Still in beta but few things clear;
You will need a client to download and play.
There will be achivements, leaderboards etc
There will be p2p sharing to cut down on bandwidth on their side.
Silent installs; client will download and install free games/demos based on your purchases/preferences.

I don't think I am liking this much..

Sounds like a more annoying version of Steam to me... At least Steam only downloads updates by itself.

I might give it a try if the "automatic download of suggested games" is on an opt-in basis. Otherwise, too intrusive.

Thanks for the info! I had bookmarked this and registered there out of curiosity, but from what you write it doesn't seem like my thing either. I'm quite content with Indievania (if only they'd get more support from indie developers and had a way of informing you about updates ...).

While I have high hopes for indie games to counter the disturbing trends in today's gaming industry, IndieCity seems to be an attempt to bring all the disadvantages of Steam into the indie community without offering better content.

If I forego new AAA titles because of Steam's intrusiveness, then copying this level of intrusiveness certainly won't make me hook up with indie games ...

The bad thing about indie developing is there is nobody who would say to them "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?"

next step: auto purchasing games?

Actually, it looks like they are trying to introduce even more annoying "features". Auto-installing free games and demos? Whoever wants such a feature? Not even Origin does that, afaik (I don't use it, but it seems the most hated platform to date). If the P2P implementation is done in similar spirit, does that mean you have no option to determine the allocated upstream? All of this sounds terrible.

Edit: In other news: Yay, I got a shiny, sparkling star below my avatar! Well, not really shiny (or sparkling for that matter), but a star nonetheless. I shall sleep well tonight.

Also, if I was someone who's okay with requiring a client to install and play, why should I register at their site when there's already Steam and Desura? What makes their site special, except for the annoying features noone seems to be very happy about? I was hoping it would be more of an alternative to the already existing shops for indie games ..

I gotta say, putting another client on my computer is a little unattractive.

DISAPPEARED

Fixed that for you. ;)

Oh God I'm drunk.

Hmm, not for me thanks.

I don't want any anything else running on my machine. Thats why i wont use Steam.

There are a number of Indie titles I would buy but as they are only available via 'Steam' type stores I do without.

Thank goodness for GoG. Would love to see them do a few Indie titles

That's why I wish Indievania would get more attention from Indie developers. They sell the games DRM-free and give 100% to the developers, so it's a win-win situation for both developers and customers. They just don't have that many high quality games there yet. (Maybe the developers don't like the absence of automatical updates and achievements, but everything comes at a price ...)

I find it kind of ironic that in this RPS interview IndieCity's project leader Chris Swan bemoaned that the indie gaming scene is very fragmented - and their answer to it is to start yet another indie games site when there's already Indievania and Desura?